


A Good, Drunk Idiot.

by sphekso



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: #DrunkenKissesChallenge Fest, Alcohol, Drinking, Drunk Will, Drunken Kissing, Fluff, M/M, Sober Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphekso/pseuds/sphekso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal finds Will utterly smashed in his kitchen and decides the time is just about right for a kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good, Drunk Idiot.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the @hannibalcreativ #DrunkenKissesChallenge. It's not much, but bon appetit!

Hannibal wakes to the sound of broken glass. He permits himself a groan. Apparently the storm raging outside has seen fit to shatter a window. Or, he supposes, it could always be a burglar. The thought gives him a little thrill.

He takes care to open and close his bedroom door with a bare minimum of noise, lest his houseguest awaken. He steps around a particularly creaky floorboard on his way down the hall, pausing for the briefest of moments at the door to his guest bedroom. He hears nothing inside. Good.

He rounds a corner in the darkness and his body tenses. Light peaks through the cracks around the kitchen door. Someone’s there. In one solid motion, he thrusts the door open and pushes into the room, ready to get the upper hand on whoever might be lying in wait for him.

But a smell hits him first—whiskey. It’s a familiar scent of late, and as it greets his nose he realizes how silly he’d been to expect anything else in the first place. He _did_ have a houseguest.

“Helping yourself to my liquor?” he asks the man before him. “I thought you had better manners.”

Will gives him a sheepish look. He’s clearly helped himself to plenty. His eyes are glazed under his glasses, which sit slightly askew on his face, and his cheeks are flushed. He looks adorable. “Sorry,” he says, and takes a wobbling step forward, holding a half-filled tumbler close to his chest. “I didn’t think you’d find out.”

Hannibal’s lips tip up at the corners in what should be an imperceptible manner, but considering the way their formerly strict hour-long sessions have taken to spilling over into full afternoons—and even evenings—Will has had plenty of time to study his features lately. So Hannibal doesn’t bother masking his smirk and says, “I would’ve seen the empty decanter in the morning. I doubt you intend to refill it.”

They lock eyes, and Will appears discomfited by it. He darts his gaze away. “I guess I don’t,” he says, and raises the tumbler to his lips. He takes a healthy sip of its not-so-healthy contents.

Hannibal smiles a little more—just _barely—_ but Will doesn’t notice. He’s too busy staring at a cabinet. “I’m not concerned about the whiskey,” Hannibal says. “But I must ask why you’re drinking it in the first place.”

Will doesn’t respond for a while. Hannibal doesn’t have any words of his own to offer, and the silence grows so heavy between them that Will is all but forced to cut into it. “I realized something difficult. Needed to calm myself.”

“Something difficult?”

Will shakes his head. “It’s not important,” he says. “Want a drink?”

“I think so. Shall I serve myself?”

“Well, I _would_ do it for you…” Will says with an all-too-obvious grimace. The liquor has brought his emotions out into the open—perhaps more than he would like.

“You _would_ do it for me?”

“I would…” Will pauses. “But it’s on the floor.”

“You mean the decanter is…?” Hannibal scans down to the hardwood. Shattered crystal spreads out from Will’s feet. So it was _Will_ who had caused the crashing sound. He thinks he should be angry—and he knows he would be were it anyone else—but now he only feels relieved that Will is wearing shoes.

“You’re mad?” Will asks, then takes another gulp as if he’s worried his host will confiscate his glass.

“Come here,” Hannibal says. He gestures to Will with a flick of his fingers.

Will looks uncertain, and Hannibal can tell he’s even a little bit scared, but he crunches forward across the broken crystal all the same. He stops a few feet away from Hannibal and quickly looks away again. He’s drunk, _very_ drunk, and it doesn’t take a wise man to suss out why he’s avoiding Hannibal’s eyes now… and what his realization must have been. And the _why_ and _what_ of it inspires Hannibal to press forward. He might not get a chance like this again.

“Don’t be afraid, Will. I’m not angry.” He studies Will’s form—shoulders hunched over his tumbler, his hands shaking ever so slightly—and gestures him closer again. “Come, set the glass aside. Do me the honor of joining me.”

“The honor?” Will blinks hard as he processes that. He shakes his head again, but sets his glass on the counter anyway.

“That’s right,” Hannibal says. He means to sound as soothing as possible—means to smooth all of the usual menace from his voice—but surprises himself when the two words quiver as they tumble from his mouth. He’s slightly nervous. It’s not a feeling he’s used to.

Will approaches him, coming closer even as his comfort level clearly plummets, then rocks back on his heels as if he hadn’t expected to come as near as he has. “Why do you want me close?” His voice is significantly shakier than Hannibal’s own. Some part of him must know.

“Will… We’ve been spending a lot of time together, haven’t we?”

“I guess we have.”

“Why did you ask to stay overnight? It wasn’t only to get into my liquor cabinet, was it?”

“Because of the storm,” Will replies, but he doesn’t sound convincing even to himself, and he still won’t meet Hannibal’s eyes. He’s giving himself away more and more with each passing second.

“There isn’t another reason? Look at me, Will.”

With that, Will finally turns his sight to him.

Their eyes lock, and all at once Hannibal feels an overwhelming feeling of alchemy. Everything unspoken between them for so long rushes to the fore of his mind in a way he doesn’t expect—every lingering gaze, every shared laugh—and his body reacts before his mind can think better of it. He reaches for Will, and still without a conscious thought closes the gap between their lips.

Will tastes of whiskey. It’s exactly what Hannibal always dreamed his mouth would taste like. He leans forward for more, but Will pushes back in response. His stance is far more precarious than either of them realizes, and before long tumbles to the floor. Hannibal’s eyes widen in shock. He reaches out for his friend’s arm.

Will knocks him away with a newly self-assured hand. “Don’t,” he says. “I’m drunk.”

“Don’t?” Hannibal’s nerves speed up as he processes exactly what Will meant by _don’t_.

“This isn’t… Not like this,” Will says. “Just… Forget this happened. Please.”

“Forget that I kissed you?”

“Yeah.”

“That might prove difficult.” He tries to hope Will is teasing him, but from the dire look on his face it’s apparent that he means every word. “I’m sorry. I overstepped.”

“It’s fine.” Will gets back on his feet, brushes a few shards of crystal from his backside, and says, “I get it. Don’t worry about it. I just wish… I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“I am, though.”

“Well,” Hannibal says, mustering as much strength as he can after being rebuffed, “if you _are_ an idiot, you’re a good one.”

Will squints at him. “A good idiot?” he asks. He doesn’t seem too upset by the kiss, or even all that irritated.

Hannibal is glad for that. “Yes. _My_ good idiot,” he says, and cringes as soon as the words are out. He’s sure he’s losing any shred of a chance he might have had to begin with, so he quickly follows up: “But only if you want to be.”

Will’s lips twitch up, only a tiny bit but still enough for the lion’s share of Hannibal’s concerns to wash away. “Ask me that again in the morning,” Will says.

“What? You’ll be hung over.”

“Then ask me after that.” He reaches out to touch Hannibal’s cheek. His fingers are warm. Hannibal’s eyes close, and they stay shut even after Will takes his hand away. “So you’ll ask me tomorrow?”

“I will,” Hannibal says, barely audible.

He feels Will move past him, and hears the kitchen door close soon after. He opens his eyes just as a peal of lightning bursts outside the window, glittering through the remains of the whiskey decanter on the floor. It’s a mess to be sure, but he’s grateful for it. The mess had led him to Will.

He picks up Will’s discarded glass and lightly presses his lips to its rim in a kind of second-hand kiss. He tastes the same sweet whiskey that had lingered on his friend’s soft lips.

“You’re _my_ idiot…?” he says under his breath, recognizing the words but still in disbelief that he’d said them at all. But they’re fitting in a way, and if Will _is_ his idiot, then he knows he wants to be Will’s idiot, too. Then maybe they could share a real kiss to replace the drunken one.

And Hannibal would like that very much indeed.


End file.
